Just a quick note to let you know that The Washington Post is officially siding against democracy, and you should unsubscribe/delete/block as applicable. You could write them, but it won’t matter because they are in the service of billionaires!
Despite the promise I made to myself not to be burdened with “getting it right” when I blog, I did want to have a few facts for myself so here is a summary of what I gathered from scrolling Wikipedia and trying not to get lost.
Jeff Bezos, currently worth around $241,900,000,000 (which is so much money that $40 million is literally negligible), is the current owner of The Washington Post. He made his billions from Amazon dot com which he created with an initial $300,000 investment from his parents. Amazon dot com is known for its poor working conditions and anti-union activities.
Bezos purchased The Washington Post in 2013 for $250,000,000. He had not been interested in the newspaper industry, but as WaPo was an institution which might not make it otherwise, he took it on. For years he did not deal with the content of the paper; he was described as being “hands off.” Bezos was able to turn things around financially, and WaPo continued its trend of endorsing Democratic presidential candidates in 2016 and 2020, and added the motto “Democracy dies in the darkness” in 2017. In a movie about how billionaires are unfairly maligned, the story would end here.
Instead! Our experience of reality persisted, and frankly it wasn’t great. WaPo’s financial stability seemed to start falling apart in 2023, with various difficulties and layoffs (I don’t know, this is my weakest sentence, but I refuse to understand business concerns. Self-care is staying in my lane). Maybe that is why late October 2024, Bezos made the unprecedented decision to kill an already written endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Who cares? The lack of endorsement, after Congress failed to secure democracy by holding Trump accountable for his crimes against the nation, was upsetting to me, but not enough for me to learn facts about Bezos. I am bothering to put these sentences together because of the latest news. Bezos posted on Twitter a letter he apparently sent to WaPo staff (emphasis mine):
I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.
I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.
I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.
Jeff
9:31 AM. Feb 26, 2025
I do not have it in me to get into what garbage this is; it doesn’t even matter. There is a rise in authoritarianism, in fascism, there is a coup in Washington which is really a continuation of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. We are inundated with unprecedented illegalities and security breaches and someone who could sneeze out a hundred million dollars and not notice is telling us that “freedom” is “ethical.”
We cannot be free while billionaires exist. We will never be free when the resources we need are locked away and doled out only in exchange for performing our proper race, gender, class, etc. There is a void in America and it can be filled with the contents of Bezos’ coffers.
The Darkness in which Democracy Died was automatically installed into your smart device, and The Washington Post is now committed to telling you how grateful you should be.